gucci

As today is a holiday (i.e. the 119th Independence Day), I took the whole day to sort my things and clean my bags. I had already run out of leather-cleaning stuff, and I’ve been wanting to drop by SM Megamall to buy some.

It was a quick and breezy ride going there, as there was no traffic. As expected, there were a lot of people inside the mall, though.

Getting the good stuff

I went straight downstairs to the Lower Ground area, where this leather-care Mecca is found. I have been hoping to go there again, but could not find the time as SM Megamall was out of the way.

After careful consideration of what I needed (not to mention foresight of not being able to go back again for months), I was able to buy a couple of products to help me on the day’s agenda.

As of yesterday, PAG-ASA has announced the start of the southwest monsoon. This only means that the rainy season is already upon us, and I can now wear my boots again! This also means not using lot of leather bags. While I had a good experience with the Collonil Waterstop spray, it was just too costly. The bottle only lasted for about a month, with the rotation that I do.

To welcome the rainy season (that just seem wrong), I used a canvas bag with minimal leather parts.

I haven’t been looking at bags for quite some… time inside thrift stores . As a result, I was so delighted to see these two unexpected items. It was an unplanned trip because I was already on my way to Makati from Marikina. But as I was already in Cubao, I might as well drop by one store just because I had to.

First, it was this vintage Gucci leather case with bamboo zipper pulls and gold hardware. The poor thing was just sitting on the eye-level shelf of a five layer rack for pouches and clutches, but I immediately recognized the zipper pulls even from afar. It baffles me how anyone would miss or ignore such iconic bamboo accents. Judging by how it originally looked, the leather body had already seen better days and had a lot of superficial stains. Those were perceivably enough deterrent to prevent anyone from picking it up. However, I knew right away that the leather used was one of those hardy Gucci leathers. A slight pressure from my thumb had removed a little smudge at the surface, and it was not something my trusted pair of leather cleaner and conditioner could not handle. Here’s a look at what it had looked before I restored it:

I never thought I would be able to keep an online account with substantial detail for this long, but time flies so fast and my blog has been running for a year already! A quick scan of of the things I’ve been blabbing about, I think there was a progressive change over the theme of the things I’ve posted. In a month or so, however, I have to pay Faye for the annual fee of having removing that ‘.wordpress.com’ from here.

At the same time, I also have to say goodbye to a bag I’ve used only for a couple of times. This bag is definitely large that it took Mon one “Hindi ba masyadong malaki ‘yan bag mo?” (Don’t you think your bag’s a bit too large?) to make me stop using it… for good. And it has been sitting in the closet for a long time, that it smells a bit, well, like the closet. I decided to finally let it go because it deserves a better owner, who will make full use of it. I think this is a healthy development and a big step to the right direction of downsizing the ridiculous number of bags I have. There. I called a spade a spade. =D It was difficult to let go because it has a sentimental value, but it also has no everyday utilitarian value (well, for me), so bye, bag, bye!